This pathbreaking book illuminates the politics of issue resolution within the European community by evaluating and comparing competing models of decision making across twenty-two policy issues. Written by American and Dutch scholars in the field, the book will be of great interest to students of comparative politics, public policy analysts, mathematic modelers, and all those concerned with the development of the European Community. Contributors: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Samuel Eldersveld, Jacek Kugler, A. F. K. Organski, Roy Pierce, Frans N. Stokman, Jan M. M. Van den Bos, Reinier Van Costen, John H. P. Williams

The New European Community is the first systematic, book-length discussion of the major political institutions of the European Community (EC) after the transformation of the 1987 Single European Act, itself a surprise and a mystery whose effects are unraveled here.Professors Keohane and Hoffmann open the volume by placing the evolution of the new European Community into broad, theoretical perspective. Their expert contributors?including highly regarded international scholars, a judge of the European Court of Justice, and a long-term British politician?present engaging overviews of the process at work in major EC events and institutions. The centerpiece of the volume, Peter Ludlow's chapter on the European Commission, lays out all of the systems and actors in the emerging EC and shows their direct connection with problems of Community development and integration.Filled with examples, illustrations, anecdotes, and valuable data, The New European Community will be indispensable for all students and scholars of international relations and European studies as well as for those in business and government who want to understand the European Community before and beyond 1992.

In this first major assessment of EC decision-making at the highest levels for ten years, Emil Kirchner examines the Council Presidency's role in European integration. The author demonstrates how the EC Council Presidency plays a crucial role in the integration process enhanced by the Single European Act and the two Intergovernmental Conferences on EMU and Political Union. He evaluates the balance and distribution of power between national and Community actors, and asks whether the Council Presidency is primarily an instrument to maintain national control of EC decision-making, rather than a device for promoting integration. He sheds light on the negotiations which led to the SEA and the two Intergovernmental Conferences, and argues for a new interpretation of the relationship between the EC and its constituent states. EC decision-making is not characterised by a transfer of powers from the national to the EC level, but by a sharing of competences between national and Community institutions and a 'pooling of sovereignties' among member governments that is analogous to 'co-operative federalism'. Decision-making in the European Community will be vital reading for political scientists and students interested in the EC; and for all those seeking to understand European integration, potentially the 1990s' most important political development.

European legislation affects countless aspects of daily life in modern Europe but just how does the European Union make such significant legislative decisions? How important are the formal decision-making procedures in defining decision outcomes and how important is the bargaining that takes place among the actors involved? Using a combination of detailed evidence and theoretical rigour, this volume addresses these questions and others that are central to understanding how the EU works in practice. It focuses on the practice of day-to-day decision-making in Brussels and the interactions that take place among the Member States in the Council and among the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. A unique data set of actual Commission proposals are examined against which the authors develop, apply and test a range of explanatory models of decision-making, exemplifying how to study decision-making in other political systems using advanced theoretical tools and appropriate research design.

Using a wide range of material the authors aim to provide a thorough assessment of the European Council's work from 1975 to 1985. They explain its fluctuating performance, its impact on other European Community institutions and analyze it in the context of international and domestic issues.

This pathbreaking book illuminates the politics of issue resolution within the European Community with evaluations and comparisons of competing models of decision making across twenty-two policy issues. Written by American and Dutch scholars, the book will be of great interest to students of comparative politics, public policy analysts, mathematic modelers, and all those concerned with the development of the European Community. One set of models explored in this volume - the expected utility model - treats politics as a conflictual activity, while the other, the exchange or log rolling model, emphasizes the cooperative nature of political processes. The alternative approaches model decision making in fundamentally different ways and make very different predictions about how issues in the European Community will be resolved. To facilitate direct comparison of their predictive and explanatory value, the models in this volume are based on the same variables: the potential control of actors over outcomes, the salience of the issues for the actors, and the outcomes preferred by the actors. The contributors test their models in the context of sixteen issues already resolved by the Council of Ministers and six issues currently under consideration, providing the reader with considerable knowledge about the controversies surrounding European Community policy on such topics as automobile emissions, nuclear radiation norms, air transport liberalization, and the European banking system. They conclude that the conflictual model and the cooperative model are less competitive and more complementary than has been thought, and they explain in detail how the models can be fruitfully combined.

Based on exhaustive research, this book explains how the European Union makes decisions in seven major policy sectors. Written in a clear, user-friendly style, it brings the EU alive for a student and non-specialist audience. The book's central themes are that informal norms often matter more than formal rules, agency often matters more than structure, and abrupt change often punctuates deadlock. It offers a theoretically-based introduction to the lively, humorous and fascinating politics of a unique experiment in modern governance.